29th January, 2020
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has presented another witness and more evidence before Justice Mallong Peter of the Federal High Court, Kaduna against Sadiq Mustapha, Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of Abueleven as the resumption of his trial.
Mustapha who is facing prosecution by the EFCC on a two-count charge of obtaining money by false pretence to the tune of N6.100,000 (Six million, One Hundred Thousand Naira) and operating a bureau de change without licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN, was arrested on June 24, 2019.
He was first arraigned on the 2nd of December 2019, where he pleaded not guilty to the two-count charge offences.
At the continuation of trial today, the EFCC presented a second witness (PW2), Abdulrahman Muhammad Danmallam, a detective with the EFCC, who while being led in evidence by prosecuting counsel, S.H.SA’AD told the court that he was among the team that investigated the allegations against the defendant following a petition by one Abdulsalam Danlami Abubakar, who alleged that the defendant obtained the sum of N6.1million for exchange of $20,000 USD but failed.
The witness further told the court that upon the receipt of the petition, a letter of investigation was written to Fidelity Bank for the account opening package and other transactions of the defendant and that analysis of the information received showed that the sum of N6.1m was paid into his company’s account, Abueleven Limited, following which he said his team contacted the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN to verify if the defendant and his company were licenced to operate a bureau de change or any financial institution, to which the CBN he said, responded in the negative.
Danmallam, further told the court that sometime in March 2016 the defendant refunded the sum of N2million to the complainant prior to the petition.
“He had paid N1.5million (One Million, Five Hundred Thousand and another N2.5million (Two million, Five Hundred Thousand) through the EFCC Zonal Office, via bank draft,” he said.
Various documents were tendered and admitted in evidence by the court.
The case was, therefore, adjourned until February 12, 2020, for the continuation of trial.